ALM Best Practices

Software Development Process Improvement: The Time is Now

  

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By Adam Kolawa, Parasoft CEO and Co-Founder

For far too long, the general demeanor for software development lifecycle (SDLC) process improvement initiatives has been “We are too busy – we can’t do a project like this now.”  As the industry has been stalling on process improvement attempts:

• Applications have become more complex
• Industries have become more regulated
• The financial risks associated with software failure have increased
• The budgets for software development have decreased

With companies now expecting more from fewer resources, software development process improvement has become a must have. One proven way to make such process improvement a reality—even within the constraints of today's environment—is Policy-Driven Development. Policy-Driven Development helps organizations rapidly establish, manage, and sustain development processes that are truly optimized for efficiency.

Policy-Driven Development is NOT a methodology.  It is a continuous process improvement approach that complements any software development methodology from Agile, to hybrid, to strict waterfall. Actionable and measurable policies are adopted in order to incrementally improve the process of developing software—increasing productivity and reducing the inherent risks associated with applied technology. 

Years ago Parasoft adopted this approach for its own development efforts, and experienced such successful results that we decided to develop a product that helped other organizations adopt similar approaches. The result is Parasoft Concerto: a complete Software Development Management (SDM) platform that ensures quality software can be produced consistently and efficiently–in any language. 

Although I’m the CEO of Parasoft, I also run the global development team. I use Parasoft Concerto’s objective, quantitative analysis of my software development processes to determine in real-time:

• Will I be on time?
• Will I be on budget?
• Will I get the correct functionality?
• Will the application work as expected?

In the next few posts, I’d like to highlight how SDM solutions such as Parasoft Concerto help organizations optimize their software development processes to improve quality and efficiency—even as they are rapidly evolving applications in response to constantly-changing business needs.

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3-Minute ALM Intro: To learn how Parasoft Concerto helps organizations deliver quality software consistently and efficiently, watch our 3-minute ALM Intro video.